JUNIUS, Letters of, a remarkable series
of political letters that were published in the
London Public Advertiser over the pseudonym
of “Junius,” between 21 Jan. 1769 and 21 Jan.
1772. These epistles greatly stirred the English
political world, for they were written with a
wide and intimate knowledge of affairs, shrewd
political sagacity, literary felicity and a certain
waspish malignity. No bolder or more audacious
comments on the actions and characters of
public men have ever appeared in the English
language. So merciless were they in their
cold-blooded vivisection and more or less polished
abuse of the policies of Granby, Bute, Grafton,
Bedford, Mansfield and, to Burke's horror,
scathing even the sacred majesty of the king,
that extraordinary efforts were made to
discover their author. But Junius, whoever he
was, escaped detection in his lifetime and,
since the days of George III, the question of his
identity, though frequently raised in England
and America, has never been satisfactorily
settled. At the close of his correspondence
Junius edited the letters for the publisher of
the Public Advertiser, Henry Sampson Woodfall,
with an explanatory preface and a
‘Dedication to the English Nation.’ He also
included a few letters he had written under other
pseudonyms than ‘Junius.’ The whole was
published in two volumes by Woodfall in 1772.
A later edition, published by Woodfall's son
and edited by Dr. Mason Good, appeared in
1812. Good introduced 113 extra letters; some
of these had passed between Woodfall senior
and Junius, but the majority had been collected
by Good from the Public Advertiser and
attributed to Junius without the slightest proof
of their authenticity. It was these interpolated
letters that gave rise to the accusation of
inconsistency frequently leveled against Junius. Some
40 different individuals have at various times
been brought forward as the real Junius,
among them being Edmund Burke, Edward
Gibbon, Lord George Sackville, Lord Chatham,
Sir Philip Francis, Colonel Barré, John Horne
Tooke, Lord Temple, General Charles Lee,
Hugh M. Boyd, Lord Chesterfield, Horace
Walpole, etc. Junius wrote his letters in a
disguised hand; he described himself as “a man
of rank and fortune,” asserted that he was the
sole depository of his own secret, and that it
should perish with him. From external
evidence and fortuitous coincidences, plausible
cases have been made out to establish the identity
of at least 10 different contemporaries with
the unknown Junius. From internal evidence,
however, including style, ability, circumstances,
ages, chronology and motives, in addition to
solemn denials by several reputed authors of
the letters, the claims and pretensions of any of
the reminder have hitherto failed to obtain a
unanimous verdict. Curiously enough, all the
advocates base their evidence on similarity of
handwriting. Apparently the strongest claim
was that made on behalf of Sir Philip Francis
(1740-1818) by Taylor in 1816 and elaborated
by a grandson, H. R. Francis, in ‘Junius
Revealed’ (London 1894). The publication of
‘The Francis Letters’ (2 vols., London 1901),
a mass of private and public correspondence,
went some way, negatively, to prove that Sir
Philip was not Junius. The best criticisms on
the disputed authorship may be found in C. W.
Dilke's ‘Papers of a Critic’ (Vol. II, London
1875) and the North American Review of
October 1829 and April 1832. Consult Britton,
J., ‘The Authorship of the Letters of Junius
Elucidated’ (London 1848); Chabot, C.,
‘Handwriting of Junius’ (London 1871); Coventry,
‘Critical Inquiry into the Letters of Junius’
(1825); Dwarris, Sir F., ‘Some New Facts as
to the Authorship of the Letters of Junius’
(London 1850); ‘Junius Unmasked’ (Boston
1828); Jacques, ‘History of Junius’ (1843);
Newhall, I., ‘Letters of Junius’ (Boston
1818); Parke and Merivale, ‘Life of Francis’
(London); Vicarius, ‘The Junius Letters’
(London 1903); Wade, J., ‘Junius’ (2 vols.,
London 1850), generally called Woodfall's Edition,
and occasionally reprinted; based entirely
upon Good (1812) it contains all his blunders.
Waterhouse, B., ‘An Essay on Junius and his
Letters’ (Boston 1831).